In January, doctors suggested to Wes Welker(notes) that his ripped-up left knee would take about one calendar year to heal. The New England Patriots receiver had torn both his ACL and his MCL. For added fun, he also needed rotator-cuff surgery.
The 2010 season, they said, was all but shot.
“You know doctors,” Welker said with a smile Sunday. “What do they know?”
Welker’s story as an undersized, unwanted everyman who became the most prolific pass-catcher in the NFL was already bordering on saccharine Disney sports-flick levels. Then came Sunday, when he shaved a remarkable three-plus months off the predicted recovery time and returned to action 252 days after his massive injury.
He wasn’t just “back,” either. He was back, immediately displaying the darting speed and slippery form that helped him lead the league in receptions two of the past three seasons. He caught eight passes for 64 yards and two touchdowns in the Patriots’ 38-24 victory over Cincinnati.
“It was awesome,” quarterback Tom Brady said.
Like a bad Hollywood script, the ending was entirely predictable, at least to the people who know Welker. The doctors may have focused on the actual medical tests when predicting a recovery time. Everyone else just considered the name of the patient.
“I knew in February he was going to be back out on the field opening day,” said Brady, who had to overcome his own ACL injury prior to last year’s season opener. “The determination he has is pretty remarkable.”
This is what Welker does: upend conventional wisdom, surprise critics and make the improbable seem like no big deal.
“There [were] different scenarios kind of talked about, like [injured reserve] and ‘save my body’ and different things like that,” he said Sunday. “But that’s just not in me. I can’t sit there and watch my team out there playing.”
He said this in his calm, dry drawl. On the field, he’s a burst of energy. Off it, he’s a laid-back, matter-of-fact, take-it-all-in kind of guy. There wasn’t going to be a lot of look-at-me emotion postgame. Maybe it all still seems so tenuous. Welker was a prep star in Oklahoma City, a state player of the year, who didn’t receive a single scholarship offer in light of his diminutive size – now listed at 5-foot-9, 185 pounds, then even smaller and lighter. He thought about walking on somewhere. He thought about joining the Navy.
Eventually, another kid backed out of a scholarship with Texas Tech and the Red Raiders took a late flyer on him. He wound up scoring 31 touchdowns for Tech – including eight on punt returns, which still stands as a NCAA record.
It wasn’t enough to attract NFL interest. Forget about being drafted; he wasn’t even invited to the NFL scouting combine. His height and weight were considered so un-NFL-like they weren’t even worth measuring. He was deemed as nothing more than the byproduct of then-Tech coach Mike Leach spread offense.
Welker managed to secure a tryout with the San Diego Chargers anyway, made the team and then was cut after the first game. The Miami Dolphins picked him up as a special-teams player and, over three seasons, began using him more and more as a wide receiver. They were never sold on him, though, and ultimately traded him to New England.
That was 2007, and since then Welker has become the only player in NFL history to catch at least 110 passes in three consecutive years. Last year, he caught 123 – tied for second most for a single season in NFL history.
People stopped doubting Welker, at least until his left knee crumpled as he tried to make a cut in the season finale in Houston. The critics had always wondered how long he could hold up in the NFL. And while the injury didn’t come on a hit, the result was the same. When he returned, they wondered if he would still have the water-bug speed so essential to his game.
Welker cared only about getting back on the field by Sept. 12. He told his doctors as much.
“They were kind of like, ‘Well, let’s wait and see where we’re at when we get there,’ ” Welker said. “So I tried to put it in their heads early. … I think when they saw my quad and how all the muscles were the same size as the other side, they were a little bit shocked but at the same time very cautious.”
Welker flew much of his family in for the game Sunday, acknowledging this was a bit of a rebirth. He’s vowed not to take a moment of being a NFL player for granted. When he caught the first pass of the season, the Gillette Stadium crowd roared with admiration. So, too, did his teammates. Then he brought home the first Patriots TD. And then another.
Other than having to wear “a stupid knee brace that I hate and can’t wait to burn,” the day was better than he dreamt.
“It’s kind of a special deal,” Welker said. “It was definitely a cool thing.”
Welker isn’t the most feared receiver in the league; he’s just the most frustrating to attempt to cover. He’s found a way to make his size an advantage. His low center of gravity allows him to push away from stronger defenders and create space. He’s a master at avoiding hits and is consistently among the league leaders in yards after the catch.
And, of course, he catches just about everything thrown in his direction.
He’s the perfect complement to Randy Moss, the Patriots’ fast deep threat who “takes the top off the defense” and allows room for Welker to work underneath. Conversely, Welker prevents defensive backs from focusing solely on Moss. The combo will be a handful for the Jets in next Sunday’s early-season divisional clash.
Welker’s loss was crushing to the Patriots last season – the team was listless and ineffective in a playoff loss to Baltimore. Sunday, it looked like the powerhouse of old, with the return of the NFL’s unlikely star raising everyone’s emotions.
Welker would just shrug at all the fanfare. His play was a surprise only to those foolish enough to still doubt him.
9.14.2010
9.13.2010
KEVIN DURANT - TOO UNSELFISH
Kevin Durant is too unselfish.
That's the one criticism U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski has of the Oklahoma City Thunder forward so far in the Americans' preparations for the world championships. He's watched Durant pass up too many shots.
A team's best player can't do that. Krzyzewski freely bestows that distinction on the 21-year-old Durant and is confident the other players on this young squad agree. It's hard to argue, considering Durant last season became the youngest to win the NBA scoring crown.
"They look to him all the time," Krzyzewski said. "They're OK with Kevin shooting. If he misses, they want him to shoot again. They know. They've seen it."
He needs to keep shooting even in games like Thursday's intrasquad scrimmage at Radio City Music Hall, when Durant was 4 of 12 and missed all five 3-point attempts.
"He's our guy," elder statesman Chauncey Billups said. "He's the go-to guy. He's the guy who for us is going to be the scorer and do all the things that Kobe, LeBron did on the Olympic team."
Durant sounded a bit conflicted upon being told his coach wanted him to be less unselfish.
"I thought I was doing a better job of finding the open man, but I guess he wants me to be more aggressive," he said.
"I don't want to be a guy that comes out here and tries to take all the shots," Durant added. "We have a lot of scorers here, so I just want to be a complement on the floor."
But he's noticed his point guards, Billups and Rajon Rondo, reminding him when he's not assertive enough.
"Certain situations during the game, I'm just letting him know we have to go through him down the stretch," Rondo said. "There's going to be some games where he has to take us home and not be so passive and be aggressive. The coaches obviously are drawing up plays to put him in situations to score the ball."
Durant averaged 30.1 points in his third NBA season to earn All-NBA first team honors. He led the Thunder to the playoffs, where they pushed the eventual champion Lakers to six games in the opening round.
"Be yourself," Lakers veteran Lamar Odom said of his advice for Durant. "He led the league in scoring. If he could lead this league in scoring, too, that would help."
No pressure.
But that's the prominent position Durant finds himself in even though this is his first stint on the national team. The U.S. heads into the world championships in Turkey later this month looking to win to clinch a berth at the 2012 Olympics.
"Everyone says Kevin Durant's the leader. He may be our best player; that doesn't mean you're the leader," Krzyzewski said. "Let him just be the best player. Let Chauncey and Lamar, those guys be the leaders."
The Americans play an exhibition Sunday against France at Madison Square Garden, the next chance for Durant to show he's not passing up on the shots a team's best player needs to take.
"Kevin wants to be an outstanding player," Krzyzewski said. "He wants to be the best. So being in this environment with this caliber of player, how he asserts himself here in a different environment will help him even more when he goes back to his current environment."
That's the one criticism U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski has of the Oklahoma City Thunder forward so far in the Americans' preparations for the world championships. He's watched Durant pass up too many shots.
A team's best player can't do that. Krzyzewski freely bestows that distinction on the 21-year-old Durant and is confident the other players on this young squad agree. It's hard to argue, considering Durant last season became the youngest to win the NBA scoring crown.
"They look to him all the time," Krzyzewski said. "They're OK with Kevin shooting. If he misses, they want him to shoot again. They know. They've seen it."
He needs to keep shooting even in games like Thursday's intrasquad scrimmage at Radio City Music Hall, when Durant was 4 of 12 and missed all five 3-point attempts.
"He's our guy," elder statesman Chauncey Billups said. "He's the go-to guy. He's the guy who for us is going to be the scorer and do all the things that Kobe, LeBron did on the Olympic team."
Durant sounded a bit conflicted upon being told his coach wanted him to be less unselfish.
"I thought I was doing a better job of finding the open man, but I guess he wants me to be more aggressive," he said.
"I don't want to be a guy that comes out here and tries to take all the shots," Durant added. "We have a lot of scorers here, so I just want to be a complement on the floor."
But he's noticed his point guards, Billups and Rajon Rondo, reminding him when he's not assertive enough.
"Certain situations during the game, I'm just letting him know we have to go through him down the stretch," Rondo said. "There's going to be some games where he has to take us home and not be so passive and be aggressive. The coaches obviously are drawing up plays to put him in situations to score the ball."
Durant averaged 30.1 points in his third NBA season to earn All-NBA first team honors. He led the Thunder to the playoffs, where they pushed the eventual champion Lakers to six games in the opening round.
"Be yourself," Lakers veteran Lamar Odom said of his advice for Durant. "He led the league in scoring. If he could lead this league in scoring, too, that would help."
No pressure.
But that's the prominent position Durant finds himself in even though this is his first stint on the national team. The U.S. heads into the world championships in Turkey later this month looking to win to clinch a berth at the 2012 Olympics.
"Everyone says Kevin Durant's the leader. He may be our best player; that doesn't mean you're the leader," Krzyzewski said. "Let him just be the best player. Let Chauncey and Lamar, those guys be the leaders."
The Americans play an exhibition Sunday against France at Madison Square Garden, the next chance for Durant to show he's not passing up on the shots a team's best player needs to take.
"Kevin wants to be an outstanding player," Krzyzewski said. "He wants to be the best. So being in this environment with this caliber of player, how he asserts himself here in a different environment will help him even more when he goes back to his current environment."
Team USA's Leader
Chauncey Billups assumes the role of leader for Team USA
A time will come during the world championships in Turkey — a close game, possibly with a medal at stake — when Team USA, from players to coaches, will rely on Chauncey Billups.
For his experience
For his knowledge
For his leadership.
Billups, 33, is the elder statesman of a team with an average age of nearly 25. He is to this U.S. team what Dallas Mavericks guard Jason Kidd was to the 2008 gold medal-winning Olympic team.
When the USA opens play Saturday against Croatia, Billups will be "as important as anybody on our team because he's the leader of the team," coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
"He's been through every experience as a player, and he's been successful," Krzyzewski said. "He and I have a very close relationship, and we talk about the team all the time."
That relationship began in earnest in 2007, when Billups worked out with Team USA in preparation for the 2008 Games.
"We have a mutual respect for one another," Billups said. "We can always be honest and frank with each other."
A family matter forced Billups to withdraw from Olympic consideration, but he maintained an interest in international basketball.
When USA Basketball Chairman Jerry Colangelo began compiling names for the 2010 worlds, Billups was at the top of the list.
Colangelo needed him, knowing that Kidd, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and Miami Heat forward LeBron James and Heat guard Dwyane Wade, among other big stars, would not be playing in Turkey.
"Even though these guys are really good players on their NBA teams, this is just a different situation," Krzyzewski said. "And having Chauncey there to settle everyone down, give confidence, know game situations, it's invaluable."
Billups started in each of the team's four exhibition victories in the past two weeks, averaging 10.3 points. But scoring isn't his only job. The USA has plenty of scorers.
Coaches love having players on the court who are an extension of them. That is Billups. Sometimes it's easier for players to hear criticism or instruction from a peer than from a coach.
Billups said if four guys are playing hard defensively and one is not, he has no problem calling out the player. Or if the physical international play that is not allowed in the NBA bothers Durant, Billups can use his calming influence.
"Knowing how I lead and how I go about it makes it a little better for the coach," Billups said.
A time will come during the world championships in Turkey — a close game, possibly with a medal at stake — when Team USA, from players to coaches, will rely on Chauncey Billups.
For his experience
For his knowledge
For his leadership.
Billups, 33, is the elder statesman of a team with an average age of nearly 25. He is to this U.S. team what Dallas Mavericks guard Jason Kidd was to the 2008 gold medal-winning Olympic team.
When the USA opens play Saturday against Croatia, Billups will be "as important as anybody on our team because he's the leader of the team," coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
"He's been through every experience as a player, and he's been successful," Krzyzewski said. "He and I have a very close relationship, and we talk about the team all the time."
That relationship began in earnest in 2007, when Billups worked out with Team USA in preparation for the 2008 Games.
"We have a mutual respect for one another," Billups said. "We can always be honest and frank with each other."
A family matter forced Billups to withdraw from Olympic consideration, but he maintained an interest in international basketball.
When USA Basketball Chairman Jerry Colangelo began compiling names for the 2010 worlds, Billups was at the top of the list.
Colangelo needed him, knowing that Kidd, Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and Miami Heat forward LeBron James and Heat guard Dwyane Wade, among other big stars, would not be playing in Turkey.
"Even though these guys are really good players on their NBA teams, this is just a different situation," Krzyzewski said. "And having Chauncey there to settle everyone down, give confidence, know game situations, it's invaluable."
Billups started in each of the team's four exhibition victories in the past two weeks, averaging 10.3 points. But scoring isn't his only job. The USA has plenty of scorers.
Coaches love having players on the court who are an extension of them. That is Billups. Sometimes it's easier for players to hear criticism or instruction from a peer than from a coach.
Billups said if four guys are playing hard defensively and one is not, he has no problem calling out the player. Or if the physical international play that is not allowed in the NBA bothers Durant, Billups can use his calming influence.
"Knowing how I lead and how I go about it makes it a little better for the coach," Billups said.
9.12.2010
TYLER HANSBROUGH
For a North Carolina men's player to have his jersey retired, he must win at least one of six national player of the year awards: The Associated Press, the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, the National Association of Basketball Coaches, Sporting News, the Wooden Award and the Naismith Award.
Tyler Hansbrough: Warrior
We have a lot of warriors in college sports. On some nights in March, some achieve their status for clutch shots in pressure-filled moments, others for big rebounding numbers, and still others for defensive prowess.
"There's really no word to describe him,” Tyler Zeller said, still awestruck after a season of watching Hansbrough each day. “It’s amazing playing out there and knowing you’ve got the guy who is going to outwork every other person on the court. He never takes a day or a play off.”
“He's our leader,” Ty Lawson added. “Everything he does on the court, everybody should follow. He's been our best player—he scores, he's our toughness, we follow him. If he wasn't our leader on the court, I don't know what we would do."
“I guess I’d say tenacity,” Wayne Ellington suggested. “The way he just keeps going and going and going, it’s like he always plays with a chip on his shoulder. I’ve never been around a guy who goes that hard on every single play.”
Indeed, Hansbrough’s place in Carolina basketball lore is secure not just because of the wins he and his teammates amassed, the records he broke, the accolades he earned. Hansbrough is beloved by Tar Heel fans and despised by so many others because every time he stepped on the court, he played as though his life depended on it. Never the most athletic, or the flashiest, he earned everything he received from the game of college basketball because he battled relentlessly.
It’s in his blood and his genes, an instinct nurtured in him since childhood. He took inspiration from the different battles of his elder brother Greg, who survived a childhood fight with cancer and then prevailed through diminished mobility on his body’s left side to compete as an athlete himself.
If you want to see a fighter, Hansbrough regularly reminded people, look at his brother who had the baseball-sized tumor cut out of his brain and went on to run marathons. Hansbrough’s now-iconic No. 50 is a tribute to his brother, who wore the number first at Missouri’s Poplar Bluff High School. When Carolina honors its greatest battler by raising Tyler’s jersey to the rafters next year, Greg will go up there as well.
Wherever Hansbrough’s drive originates, we’ll be struggling for years to adequately describe a work ethic so intense that Hansbrough’s teammates and trainers called him Psycho T.
By the time all was said and done, even Mike Krzyzewski acknowledged the specialness of what Hansbrough had accomplished, not just against his teams but against the entire college basketball world.
“He's one of the best that has played, not just here, but in the ACC,” Krzyzewski said. “When you think of Tyler, you're going to think of a warrior. You would never say that there was a possession that he did not play…. It puts him in a really elite class in the history of this conference. So he deserves all that he gets. He's earned it.”
“I’ve never coached anybody who’s had to face as much on the court as he’s had to face,” Roy Williams recalled as Hansbrough’s senior season drew to a close. “To do the things he’s done with two and three guys hanging off him, and as physical as he’s played…. I find it hard to believe.”
“Somebody asked me if he’s the hardest worker I’ve ever been around,” Williams reflected. “No, Michael Jordan worked as hard. Kirk Hinrich on the court worked as hard but Tyler is the most focused. Michael was the most driven to win. Tyler is the most focused to do everything he can to have his body in the best shape it can be and make himself the best player he can possibly be…. He’s unique in his discipline.”
“Absolutely,” Bobby Frasor says, asked if reality lives up to the myth when it comes to Hansbrough’s steely concentration and will. It started from the first week of freshman practice. “We were running sprints, and everyone was going as hard as we could,” Frasor remembered. “We all start falling out. Danny Green fell first, then Marcus Ginyard and me. Tyler’s still going. And then he just starts yelling and is still going. He wouldn’t quit.”
It’s the very definition of a legend: something or someone so improbable that you’re excused for wondering what’s fact and what’s fiction. While another athlete might surpass Hansbrough’s records one day, the legend will remain, because night-in and night-out, Hansbrough gave us reason to believe that the impossible isn’t.
You say he can’t get that ridiculous leaning push shot of his or the ungainly half-hook to drop against ACC-caliber teams? Wrong.
Say he can’t possibly become the first four-time All-American in college basketball history? Wrong again.
Say he can’t live in the paint and survive the physical abuse to top a three-point gunner’s record as the all-time scorer in the ACC?
Wrong again.
Tyler Hansbrough: Human
Shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other, for once the legend looked uneasy on the floor where he’d so often dominated. You could just see it in his eyes—he knew he wasn’t going to win this one. With head slightly bowed, he sucked in a shallow breath, swallowed hard, looked into the stands. And then the tears flowed.
Voice trembling, Hansbrough’s normally deep baritone could hardly manage the words. But with his gaze locked a few feet away at the second row of seats, he finally gave in. “Thank you,” he breathed, as his brothers, father, and mother stood to receive the words that ever-so-briefly made Psycho T vanish. In his place stood the student, the son, the sibling, the friend. And as his words were swallowed in the grateful cheers of thousands, with a final wave, he lowered the microphone and gave up the stage.
It took almost four years and 118 wins. But on March 8, 2009, standing near center court at the Smith Center, Tyler Hansbrough finally proved he was human.
Tyler Hansbrough: Winner
The media swarmed as usual. Hansbrough and his teammates had just dispatched North Carolina State in the kind of late-February contest that routinely gives fans heartburn on the way to conference titles and top seeds in the NCAA tournament. Though Carolina had prevailed, the 89-80 final score reflected the challenge—a trap game against a lesser but still proud opponent hell-bent on slowing the Tar Heels’ seemingly inevitable march to an ACC crown.
But Hansbrough had dominated again, refusing to be denied, pouring in 20 of his 27 points in the second half. On the way he’d scooted past the legendary “Pistol” Pete Maravich for second on the NCAA all-time list for career free throws made. (It would be two more games before he passed Wake Forest’s Dickie Hemric to become first on the list, grabbing hold of a record that had stood for nearly six decades.) Hansbrough had scored inside, outside, over, around, and yes, through. It was pure All-American, the stuff that leads your fans to call you a legend.
Having satisfied the reporters with the second or third round of quotes about the significance of showing his best against an in-state foe, Hansbrough looked relieved, ready to hit the ice bath, grab a protein shake, and head for some well-deserved rest.
From his first game against an upset-minded Gardner-Webb team to his last against Michigan State, earning the National Championship he had made his grail. In between, he and his classmates won 124 games, more than any other Tar Heel class in history.
Hansbrough wasn’t alone in winning, of course. But with a shifting supporting cast that at various times featured older upperclassmen, younger protégés, injured teammates, and one of the best backcourts in America, Hansbrough was the anchor. With his senior classmates, he won more games than any other class in UNC basketball history. During Dean Smith’s heyday, his teams were legendary for their 20-win seasons. But under Roy Williams, Hansbrough’s class set a new plateau, part of a group that was the first to notch three consecutive 30-win seasons. Along the way, Hansbrough helped lead Carolina to three straight ACC regular-season titles and back-to-back conference tournament titles in 2007 and 2008.
Among the defeated, few were more humbled than Carolina’s in-state ACC rivals. Hansbrough went 4-1 against Wake Forest, 8-1 against State, and, for the ultimate badge of honor, 6-2 against Duke. College basketball’s greatest rivalry has brought out the best in Tar Heel greats for generations, but few have embraced its passion and owned the opponent like Hansbrough, whose six wins included four at Cameron Indoor Stadium. His remarkable run against the Blue Devils started with taking down J.J. Redick on his senior night in 2006, and it finished in 2009 with a home win that left Hansbrough just shy of Redick’s ACC career scoring mark.
Two weeks after Hansbrough’s final win against Duke, he finally topped Redick’s scoring record.
But it wasn’t just the teams against which Hansbrough won. It was the way he won. Though he showed emotion only rarely on the court, in victory there were those glorious times he just couldn’t contain himself. Remember the full throated victory roar after he willed Carolina to that double-overtime thriller against Clemson, stealing the ball and then diving headlong to secure it, ensuring the Tar Heels’ improbable home undefeated streak against the Tigers would endure? Or when he was so pumped he ran down the wrong tunnel after knocking off Virginia Tech for the second straight year in the ACC tournament, waving his arms in victory like a school kid?
“I was just so glad to be playing another day, I didn’t care,” he said afterward with a grin.
Hansbrough earned respect by regularly refusing to let others make a big deal of his accomplishments. He always credited his teammates and coaches first, and his graceful acceptance of the honors that came his way were all genuinely humble. “He doesn’t realize how good he is, and that is a good characteristic to have,” said Roy Williams. “If we win and he scores eight, he’s going to be the happiest person in the gym. That’s the way he is. He’s interested in his team winning.”
Fortunately, his head coach isn’t afraid to sing his praises. What Williams sees—and what fans will remember for generations—is a team-first player of the utmost character, the kind of winner who will be remembered not only for the NCAA title or the individual accolades but for the way he played the game.
“He’s a unique young man. That is the best word that I can use to describe him,” Williams said. “I've said before, and I'll say many times, I've been awfully lucky. He is the most focused individual I have ever seen. The most driven to be the best player he can be, to try to get the most out of his potential, to listen to what his coaches say, and to try to work on those things. He's just been an unbelievable joy to be with.”
How perfect, then, for player and coach to earn the storybook ending they’d both strived to achieve. As the closing moments ticked away in Hansbrough’s final and most memorable victory, he thrust both hands into the air, then enveloped Williams in an embrace that might have crushed the air from a less robust recipient. Together, they’d done it. And in that final, rapturous moment, there could be no mistake.
Tyler Hansbrough is a winner for the ages.
Tyler Hansbrough: Champion
Tyler Hansbrough was adamant that he didn’t need a national title to legitimize his career, but seemingly everyone outside of the UNC program thought he did. And so as he’d done for four years, the sometimes awkward, always indomitable middle child from Poplar Bluff, Mo. delivered in the only way he knows how—by winning.
There are plenty of people that confront a challenge head-on, but very few that wrestle it to the ground for a quick three-count pin. Hansbrough rose to the occasion various times throughout his career. That’s what champions do—they raise the level of their game and they find a way to win.
And so when it was time for Hansbrough to do what he had to do for this program to cut down the nets in Detroit, he accomplished that mission by stepping out of the spotlight ever so slightly and letting Lawson beep-beep his way to the national title.
“Everybody put their individual goals to the side, and got something accomplished for the team, and that’s what it’s all about,” he said after scoring 18 points and grabbing seven rebounds in the championship game.
Nearly four years later, those long hours in the gym, those late nights shooting free throws and the vicious physicality that followed him around during his career were met with a loud buzzer with 1:03 remaining in a national championship game that North Carolina would win 89-72. Hansbrough walked off the court in a Tar Heel uniform for the very last time—in victory as a champion.
“The sheer joy that I saw on his face as he came walking towards me to hug me is just indescribable,” Williams would say the morning after.
When he strolled into UNC’s Ford Field locker room with a freshly-cut net hanging around his neck, pure elation shone through his eyes.
Hansbrough may not have needed a national championship to validate his career, but he’s definitely not going to give it back. After a career of thanking his teammates while accepting individual awards, he finally got the opportunity to share his most-prized possession of all with his fellow Tar Heels.
"Who can say they're a national champion?” he asked. “I can."
Tyler Hansbrough: Warrior
We have a lot of warriors in college sports. On some nights in March, some achieve their status for clutch shots in pressure-filled moments, others for big rebounding numbers, and still others for defensive prowess.
"There's really no word to describe him,” Tyler Zeller said, still awestruck after a season of watching Hansbrough each day. “It’s amazing playing out there and knowing you’ve got the guy who is going to outwork every other person on the court. He never takes a day or a play off.”
“He's our leader,” Ty Lawson added. “Everything he does on the court, everybody should follow. He's been our best player—he scores, he's our toughness, we follow him. If he wasn't our leader on the court, I don't know what we would do."
“I guess I’d say tenacity,” Wayne Ellington suggested. “The way he just keeps going and going and going, it’s like he always plays with a chip on his shoulder. I’ve never been around a guy who goes that hard on every single play.”
Indeed, Hansbrough’s place in Carolina basketball lore is secure not just because of the wins he and his teammates amassed, the records he broke, the accolades he earned. Hansbrough is beloved by Tar Heel fans and despised by so many others because every time he stepped on the court, he played as though his life depended on it. Never the most athletic, or the flashiest, he earned everything he received from the game of college basketball because he battled relentlessly.
It’s in his blood and his genes, an instinct nurtured in him since childhood. He took inspiration from the different battles of his elder brother Greg, who survived a childhood fight with cancer and then prevailed through diminished mobility on his body’s left side to compete as an athlete himself.
If you want to see a fighter, Hansbrough regularly reminded people, look at his brother who had the baseball-sized tumor cut out of his brain and went on to run marathons. Hansbrough’s now-iconic No. 50 is a tribute to his brother, who wore the number first at Missouri’s Poplar Bluff High School. When Carolina honors its greatest battler by raising Tyler’s jersey to the rafters next year, Greg will go up there as well.
Wherever Hansbrough’s drive originates, we’ll be struggling for years to adequately describe a work ethic so intense that Hansbrough’s teammates and trainers called him Psycho T.
By the time all was said and done, even Mike Krzyzewski acknowledged the specialness of what Hansbrough had accomplished, not just against his teams but against the entire college basketball world.
“He's one of the best that has played, not just here, but in the ACC,” Krzyzewski said. “When you think of Tyler, you're going to think of a warrior. You would never say that there was a possession that he did not play…. It puts him in a really elite class in the history of this conference. So he deserves all that he gets. He's earned it.”
“I’ve never coached anybody who’s had to face as much on the court as he’s had to face,” Roy Williams recalled as Hansbrough’s senior season drew to a close. “To do the things he’s done with two and three guys hanging off him, and as physical as he’s played…. I find it hard to believe.”
“Somebody asked me if he’s the hardest worker I’ve ever been around,” Williams reflected. “No, Michael Jordan worked as hard. Kirk Hinrich on the court worked as hard but Tyler is the most focused. Michael was the most driven to win. Tyler is the most focused to do everything he can to have his body in the best shape it can be and make himself the best player he can possibly be…. He’s unique in his discipline.”
“Absolutely,” Bobby Frasor says, asked if reality lives up to the myth when it comes to Hansbrough’s steely concentration and will. It started from the first week of freshman practice. “We were running sprints, and everyone was going as hard as we could,” Frasor remembered. “We all start falling out. Danny Green fell first, then Marcus Ginyard and me. Tyler’s still going. And then he just starts yelling and is still going. He wouldn’t quit.”
It’s the very definition of a legend: something or someone so improbable that you’re excused for wondering what’s fact and what’s fiction. While another athlete might surpass Hansbrough’s records one day, the legend will remain, because night-in and night-out, Hansbrough gave us reason to believe that the impossible isn’t.
You say he can’t get that ridiculous leaning push shot of his or the ungainly half-hook to drop against ACC-caliber teams? Wrong.
Say he can’t possibly become the first four-time All-American in college basketball history? Wrong again.
Say he can’t live in the paint and survive the physical abuse to top a three-point gunner’s record as the all-time scorer in the ACC?
Wrong again.
Tyler Hansbrough: Human
Shifting his weight uncomfortably from one foot to the other, for once the legend looked uneasy on the floor where he’d so often dominated. You could just see it in his eyes—he knew he wasn’t going to win this one. With head slightly bowed, he sucked in a shallow breath, swallowed hard, looked into the stands. And then the tears flowed.
Voice trembling, Hansbrough’s normally deep baritone could hardly manage the words. But with his gaze locked a few feet away at the second row of seats, he finally gave in. “Thank you,” he breathed, as his brothers, father, and mother stood to receive the words that ever-so-briefly made Psycho T vanish. In his place stood the student, the son, the sibling, the friend. And as his words were swallowed in the grateful cheers of thousands, with a final wave, he lowered the microphone and gave up the stage.
It took almost four years and 118 wins. But on March 8, 2009, standing near center court at the Smith Center, Tyler Hansbrough finally proved he was human.
Tyler Hansbrough: Winner
The media swarmed as usual. Hansbrough and his teammates had just dispatched North Carolina State in the kind of late-February contest that routinely gives fans heartburn on the way to conference titles and top seeds in the NCAA tournament. Though Carolina had prevailed, the 89-80 final score reflected the challenge—a trap game against a lesser but still proud opponent hell-bent on slowing the Tar Heels’ seemingly inevitable march to an ACC crown.
But Hansbrough had dominated again, refusing to be denied, pouring in 20 of his 27 points in the second half. On the way he’d scooted past the legendary “Pistol” Pete Maravich for second on the NCAA all-time list for career free throws made. (It would be two more games before he passed Wake Forest’s Dickie Hemric to become first on the list, grabbing hold of a record that had stood for nearly six decades.) Hansbrough had scored inside, outside, over, around, and yes, through. It was pure All-American, the stuff that leads your fans to call you a legend.
Having satisfied the reporters with the second or third round of quotes about the significance of showing his best against an in-state foe, Hansbrough looked relieved, ready to hit the ice bath, grab a protein shake, and head for some well-deserved rest.
From his first game against an upset-minded Gardner-Webb team to his last against Michigan State, earning the National Championship he had made his grail. In between, he and his classmates won 124 games, more than any other Tar Heel class in history.
Hansbrough wasn’t alone in winning, of course. But with a shifting supporting cast that at various times featured older upperclassmen, younger protégés, injured teammates, and one of the best backcourts in America, Hansbrough was the anchor. With his senior classmates, he won more games than any other class in UNC basketball history. During Dean Smith’s heyday, his teams were legendary for their 20-win seasons. But under Roy Williams, Hansbrough’s class set a new plateau, part of a group that was the first to notch three consecutive 30-win seasons. Along the way, Hansbrough helped lead Carolina to three straight ACC regular-season titles and back-to-back conference tournament titles in 2007 and 2008.
Among the defeated, few were more humbled than Carolina’s in-state ACC rivals. Hansbrough went 4-1 against Wake Forest, 8-1 against State, and, for the ultimate badge of honor, 6-2 against Duke. College basketball’s greatest rivalry has brought out the best in Tar Heel greats for generations, but few have embraced its passion and owned the opponent like Hansbrough, whose six wins included four at Cameron Indoor Stadium. His remarkable run against the Blue Devils started with taking down J.J. Redick on his senior night in 2006, and it finished in 2009 with a home win that left Hansbrough just shy of Redick’s ACC career scoring mark.
Two weeks after Hansbrough’s final win against Duke, he finally topped Redick’s scoring record.
But it wasn’t just the teams against which Hansbrough won. It was the way he won. Though he showed emotion only rarely on the court, in victory there were those glorious times he just couldn’t contain himself. Remember the full throated victory roar after he willed Carolina to that double-overtime thriller against Clemson, stealing the ball and then diving headlong to secure it, ensuring the Tar Heels’ improbable home undefeated streak against the Tigers would endure? Or when he was so pumped he ran down the wrong tunnel after knocking off Virginia Tech for the second straight year in the ACC tournament, waving his arms in victory like a school kid?
“I was just so glad to be playing another day, I didn’t care,” he said afterward with a grin.
Hansbrough earned respect by regularly refusing to let others make a big deal of his accomplishments. He always credited his teammates and coaches first, and his graceful acceptance of the honors that came his way were all genuinely humble. “He doesn’t realize how good he is, and that is a good characteristic to have,” said Roy Williams. “If we win and he scores eight, he’s going to be the happiest person in the gym. That’s the way he is. He’s interested in his team winning.”
Fortunately, his head coach isn’t afraid to sing his praises. What Williams sees—and what fans will remember for generations—is a team-first player of the utmost character, the kind of winner who will be remembered not only for the NCAA title or the individual accolades but for the way he played the game.
“He’s a unique young man. That is the best word that I can use to describe him,” Williams said. “I've said before, and I'll say many times, I've been awfully lucky. He is the most focused individual I have ever seen. The most driven to be the best player he can be, to try to get the most out of his potential, to listen to what his coaches say, and to try to work on those things. He's just been an unbelievable joy to be with.”
How perfect, then, for player and coach to earn the storybook ending they’d both strived to achieve. As the closing moments ticked away in Hansbrough’s final and most memorable victory, he thrust both hands into the air, then enveloped Williams in an embrace that might have crushed the air from a less robust recipient. Together, they’d done it. And in that final, rapturous moment, there could be no mistake.
Tyler Hansbrough is a winner for the ages.
Tyler Hansbrough: Champion
Tyler Hansbrough was adamant that he didn’t need a national title to legitimize his career, but seemingly everyone outside of the UNC program thought he did. And so as he’d done for four years, the sometimes awkward, always indomitable middle child from Poplar Bluff, Mo. delivered in the only way he knows how—by winning.
There are plenty of people that confront a challenge head-on, but very few that wrestle it to the ground for a quick three-count pin. Hansbrough rose to the occasion various times throughout his career. That’s what champions do—they raise the level of their game and they find a way to win.
And so when it was time for Hansbrough to do what he had to do for this program to cut down the nets in Detroit, he accomplished that mission by stepping out of the spotlight ever so slightly and letting Lawson beep-beep his way to the national title.
“Everybody put their individual goals to the side, and got something accomplished for the team, and that’s what it’s all about,” he said after scoring 18 points and grabbing seven rebounds in the championship game.
Nearly four years later, those long hours in the gym, those late nights shooting free throws and the vicious physicality that followed him around during his career were met with a loud buzzer with 1:03 remaining in a national championship game that North Carolina would win 89-72. Hansbrough walked off the court in a Tar Heel uniform for the very last time—in victory as a champion.
“The sheer joy that I saw on his face as he came walking towards me to hug me is just indescribable,” Williams would say the morning after.
When he strolled into UNC’s Ford Field locker room with a freshly-cut net hanging around his neck, pure elation shone through his eyes.
Hansbrough may not have needed a national championship to validate his career, but he’s definitely not going to give it back. After a career of thanking his teammates while accepting individual awards, he finally got the opportunity to share his most-prized possession of all with his fellow Tar Heels.
"Who can say they're a national champion?” he asked. “I can."
7.16.2010
Leadership – For Team Captains And Leaders
(Six critical ways that effective team captains can help the team to win more games this season)
1. Ensure High Standards And A Strong Work Ethic
Without effective team leaders, mediocrity can become the goal of the team. The team motto can become “Do just enough to get by” and “That’s good enough.” No one steps up and sets the tone for the rest of the team to follow. Further, when some athletes inevitably slack off and cut corners, no one is willing to constructively confront them on it and let them know that their laziness is unacceptable and detrimental to the team.
Great team leaders lead by example and set the standards for everyone else to follow. They consistently give it they’re all and demand that their teammates do the same.
“The second I let down, particularly if I’m perceived as the leader of my team, I give others an opening to let down as well. Why not? If the person out front takes a day off or doesn’t play hard, why should anyone else?”
--Michael Jordan
2. Keep Your Team From Crumbling Under Pressure And Adversity
Without a team leader, teams often crumble under pressure and adversity. Players quickly get frustrated with opponents, officials, teammates, and themselves and lose their composure. They get distracted by their past mistakes and worry about making future errors. Further, when teams fall apart they tend to blame each other, which distract, divides, and destroy your team. Without a team leader, your players isolate themselves from the team instead of pulling together and staying tough. This lack of leadership and mental toughness during adversity often forces you to burn precious time-outs and make unwanted substitutions during the game. Worse, your team ends up beating itself because they self-destruct rather than staying tough and forcing your opponents to beat you.You can likely trace many of your losses back to the lack of ineffective team leaders stepping up and refocusing the team during critical stretches.
Effective team leaders help their teammates weather the inevitable storms of adversity that occur during games and throughout the season. When adversity strikes, great leaders maintain their own composure, which keeps their teammates under control. They can refocus the team back on the task at hand. Good team leaders are a calming force who are able to help their teammates adjust and refocus.
“Young players are leaders only when they are playing well…that’s not leadership. Anyone can lead the league in high fives when things are going well. But during adversity is when you need leaders in your group.”
3. Build Better Team Chemistry
Effective team leaders promote a positive sense of team chemistry. They welcome and take the new members of the team under their wing so the new players feel accepted and have someone to turn to should something go wrong.
Effective team leaders prevent cliques from developing as they look to break down barriers, unify their teammates, and rally them around a common goal.
“If you want to build an atmosphere in which everybody pulls together to win, then you, as a leader have to recognize that it all starts with you. It starts with your attitude, your commitment, your caring, your passion for excellence, and your dedication to winning. It starts with the example you set.”
--Pat Williams – Orlando Magic General Manager
4. Help The Coach To Take The Pulse Of The Team
If the coach does not have a good leader he can trust the coach might miss some important things happening with the players and team. The coach might not know why a certain player all of a sudden isn’t playing well or why another might not be communicating with the coach any more. Further, the players may lose enthusiasm and the coaches may not be sure why.
Effective team leaders help keep the coaches connected to the team. They keep the coaches informed about how players might be doing, who is struggling, and if there is any dissension brewing amongst the team.
5. Minimize And Manage Conflict
Additionally, good team leaders will help the coaches to manage the inevitable conflict that occurs on every team between players, coaches, parents, and others. They can often handle and solve a lot of problems before the coaches even have to get involved. This frees up time to focus on what the coaches do best – Coaching!
6. Are The Best Insurance Against Stupidity
Good leaders are the best insurance policy against athletes making stupid decisions at school and in the community that could tarnish the team and club.
Great team leaders tend to be around their teammates more and can be a positive influence on them. This is especially true on weekend evenings when athletes can be tempted to do things that could potentially have negative effects on themselves and the team, not to mention your program’s reputation. Great team leaders look out for their teammates and are willing to constructively confront them when necessary.
1. Ensure High Standards And A Strong Work Ethic
Without effective team leaders, mediocrity can become the goal of the team. The team motto can become “Do just enough to get by” and “That’s good enough.” No one steps up and sets the tone for the rest of the team to follow. Further, when some athletes inevitably slack off and cut corners, no one is willing to constructively confront them on it and let them know that their laziness is unacceptable and detrimental to the team.
Great team leaders lead by example and set the standards for everyone else to follow. They consistently give it they’re all and demand that their teammates do the same.
“The second I let down, particularly if I’m perceived as the leader of my team, I give others an opening to let down as well. Why not? If the person out front takes a day off or doesn’t play hard, why should anyone else?”
--Michael Jordan
2. Keep Your Team From Crumbling Under Pressure And Adversity
Without a team leader, teams often crumble under pressure and adversity. Players quickly get frustrated with opponents, officials, teammates, and themselves and lose their composure. They get distracted by their past mistakes and worry about making future errors. Further, when teams fall apart they tend to blame each other, which distract, divides, and destroy your team. Without a team leader, your players isolate themselves from the team instead of pulling together and staying tough. This lack of leadership and mental toughness during adversity often forces you to burn precious time-outs and make unwanted substitutions during the game. Worse, your team ends up beating itself because they self-destruct rather than staying tough and forcing your opponents to beat you.You can likely trace many of your losses back to the lack of ineffective team leaders stepping up and refocusing the team during critical stretches.
Effective team leaders help their teammates weather the inevitable storms of adversity that occur during games and throughout the season. When adversity strikes, great leaders maintain their own composure, which keeps their teammates under control. They can refocus the team back on the task at hand. Good team leaders are a calming force who are able to help their teammates adjust and refocus.
“Young players are leaders only when they are playing well…that’s not leadership. Anyone can lead the league in high fives when things are going well. But during adversity is when you need leaders in your group.”
3. Build Better Team Chemistry
Effective team leaders promote a positive sense of team chemistry. They welcome and take the new members of the team under their wing so the new players feel accepted and have someone to turn to should something go wrong.
Effective team leaders prevent cliques from developing as they look to break down barriers, unify their teammates, and rally them around a common goal.
“If you want to build an atmosphere in which everybody pulls together to win, then you, as a leader have to recognize that it all starts with you. It starts with your attitude, your commitment, your caring, your passion for excellence, and your dedication to winning. It starts with the example you set.”
--Pat Williams – Orlando Magic General Manager
4. Help The Coach To Take The Pulse Of The Team
If the coach does not have a good leader he can trust the coach might miss some important things happening with the players and team. The coach might not know why a certain player all of a sudden isn’t playing well or why another might not be communicating with the coach any more. Further, the players may lose enthusiasm and the coaches may not be sure why.
Effective team leaders help keep the coaches connected to the team. They keep the coaches informed about how players might be doing, who is struggling, and if there is any dissension brewing amongst the team.
5. Minimize And Manage Conflict
Additionally, good team leaders will help the coaches to manage the inevitable conflict that occurs on every team between players, coaches, parents, and others. They can often handle and solve a lot of problems before the coaches even have to get involved. This frees up time to focus on what the coaches do best – Coaching!
6. Are The Best Insurance Against Stupidity
Good leaders are the best insurance policy against athletes making stupid decisions at school and in the community that could tarnish the team and club.
Great team leaders tend to be around their teammates more and can be a positive influence on them. This is especially true on weekend evenings when athletes can be tempted to do things that could potentially have negative effects on themselves and the team, not to mention your program’s reputation. Great team leaders look out for their teammates and are willing to constructively confront them when necessary.
6.15.2010
KOBE WANTING TO BE COACHED
When Chuck Person arrived in Los Angeles for training camp, he had never before said a word to Bryant. Person, a former Pacers and Kings assistant, was hired by the Lakers as a special assistant because of his close relationship with the newly acquired Ron Artest. The Lakers wanted somebody to help Artest with his transition. They did not need anybody to help Bryant with his shooting. But Person, who spent 13 years stretching NBA defenses, had studied Bryant's stroke from afar, marveling at his footwork, his vertical leap, his power of separation. "There was just one thing," Person says, "that I felt I could enhance."
A young player is taught, from the time he can lift the ball overhead, to finish the shot with his index finger pointed at the ground. "Kobe was following through with so much of the index that the ball was turning ever so slightly off that finger and he was getting a little sidespin," Person says. "When he wasn't right on, the ball would roll off the rim." Person believed he could help Bryant, but he had to be tactful about it. He could not just walk up to one of the best scorers ever and tinker with his shot. He needed an opening.
On Dec. 11 Los Angeles played the Timberwolves, and point guard Jordan Farmar made a lazy pass to Bryant at the three-point line. Timberwolves forward Corey Brewer lunged for it, deflecting the ball off Bryant's right index finger. Told he had an avulsion fracture, Bryant refused to sit out, and the next night in Utah he missed 17 of 24 shots, including eight of nine three-pointers. The time was right for Person. He approached Bryant and explained that he too had suffered an avulsion fracture in his index finger, with Indiana in 1991. He also told Bryant that the injury presented an opportunity.
"I asked him for his trust," Person says, "and I told him that we should start working together. He didn't argue with me. He bought in right away." Person wanted Bryant to put more pressure on the middle and ring fingers in his release, creating more backspin and friendlier rolls off the rim. The pad Bryant had to wear on the index finger would force him to concentrate on the other two.
The day after the Utah game, Bryant and Person convened early at the Lakers' training facility and shot for one hour before practice. The next day they did the same. Then they flew to Chicago and worked out that night at the United Center. During a break Bryant asked Person, "Did you ever score 40 points with your finger this way?" Person said he did. For Bryant it was a rare moment of self-doubt, and then it was gone. "I'm going to get 50," he said. They arrived at the United Center early the next morning for a shootaround, stayed late, and that night Bryant lit up the Bulls for 42 points on 15-of-26 shooting. A day later he scored 39 in Milwaukee, with a game-winner at the buzzer.
Penetrating Bryant's circle is not easy, but Person had a way in. As a freshman at Brantley (Ala.) High School 31 years ago, Person attended a summer basketball camp at Auburn University. The guest counselor was Jerry West, who as the Lakers executive vice president would bring Bryant from high school to Los Angeles 17 years later. "All the things I told Kobe," Person says, "are things Jerry West told me at that camp." Person persuaded Bryant to raise the ball straight into his shot instead of holding it for a moment at his hip, which has quickened his release; lift his right elbow from nose level to forehead level, which has heightened his arc; and keep that elbow pointed at the basket no matter how his body is contorted. "If you saw a tape of him shooting six months ago," Person says, "it would look completely different."
Many in the organization did not understand why Bryant insisted on playing with the broken finger. He could afford to take time off in December; they needed him healthy in June. As it turned out, playing in December is exactly what prepared Bryant for June. He spent the regular season refashioning his shot in time for the playoffs. The transition was not always easy—his field goal percentage, free throw percentage and three-point percentage all dipped as Person's tinkering intensified—but it was necessary. Although the fracture has healed, Bryant was left with an arthritic knuckle on his index finger that is swollen and painful but appears to affect him not at all. "It's almost helped to some degree," says Lakers shooting coach Craig Hodges. "at the net when Kobe shoots now. The ball sinks to the bottom, and 'Pow!' It pops up. That's the backspin he's getting from the middle finger." The index finger is just supposed to hold the ball. The middle finger is supposed to do the work.
Bryant's longevity is a by-product of the many subtle adjustments he has made over the years, starting in 1999, when he broke his right hand and spent all of training camp developing his left. Back then, defenders would dare Bryant to shoot from outside, an unfathomable strategy today. They also tried to lock him up in the post, equally unthinkable. "I don't know any better post player in the game now," West says. Next up for Bryant, says Lakers assistant Jim Cleamons, "he will learn to come off screens so the ball will work for him and he won't have to beat everybody." Bryant's endless improvements require a kind of humility, the best player in the game forever open to the idea that he can get better.
A young player is taught, from the time he can lift the ball overhead, to finish the shot with his index finger pointed at the ground. "Kobe was following through with so much of the index that the ball was turning ever so slightly off that finger and he was getting a little sidespin," Person says. "When he wasn't right on, the ball would roll off the rim." Person believed he could help Bryant, but he had to be tactful about it. He could not just walk up to one of the best scorers ever and tinker with his shot. He needed an opening.
On Dec. 11 Los Angeles played the Timberwolves, and point guard Jordan Farmar made a lazy pass to Bryant at the three-point line. Timberwolves forward Corey Brewer lunged for it, deflecting the ball off Bryant's right index finger. Told he had an avulsion fracture, Bryant refused to sit out, and the next night in Utah he missed 17 of 24 shots, including eight of nine three-pointers. The time was right for Person. He approached Bryant and explained that he too had suffered an avulsion fracture in his index finger, with Indiana in 1991. He also told Bryant that the injury presented an opportunity.
"I asked him for his trust," Person says, "and I told him that we should start working together. He didn't argue with me. He bought in right away." Person wanted Bryant to put more pressure on the middle and ring fingers in his release, creating more backspin and friendlier rolls off the rim. The pad Bryant had to wear on the index finger would force him to concentrate on the other two.
The day after the Utah game, Bryant and Person convened early at the Lakers' training facility and shot for one hour before practice. The next day they did the same. Then they flew to Chicago and worked out that night at the United Center. During a break Bryant asked Person, "Did you ever score 40 points with your finger this way?" Person said he did. For Bryant it was a rare moment of self-doubt, and then it was gone. "I'm going to get 50," he said. They arrived at the United Center early the next morning for a shootaround, stayed late, and that night Bryant lit up the Bulls for 42 points on 15-of-26 shooting. A day later he scored 39 in Milwaukee, with a game-winner at the buzzer.
Penetrating Bryant's circle is not easy, but Person had a way in. As a freshman at Brantley (Ala.) High School 31 years ago, Person attended a summer basketball camp at Auburn University. The guest counselor was Jerry West, who as the Lakers executive vice president would bring Bryant from high school to Los Angeles 17 years later. "All the things I told Kobe," Person says, "are things Jerry West told me at that camp." Person persuaded Bryant to raise the ball straight into his shot instead of holding it for a moment at his hip, which has quickened his release; lift his right elbow from nose level to forehead level, which has heightened his arc; and keep that elbow pointed at the basket no matter how his body is contorted. "If you saw a tape of him shooting six months ago," Person says, "it would look completely different."
Many in the organization did not understand why Bryant insisted on playing with the broken finger. He could afford to take time off in December; they needed him healthy in June. As it turned out, playing in December is exactly what prepared Bryant for June. He spent the regular season refashioning his shot in time for the playoffs. The transition was not always easy—his field goal percentage, free throw percentage and three-point percentage all dipped as Person's tinkering intensified—but it was necessary. Although the fracture has healed, Bryant was left with an arthritic knuckle on his index finger that is swollen and painful but appears to affect him not at all. "It's almost helped to some degree," says Lakers shooting coach Craig Hodges. "at the net when Kobe shoots now. The ball sinks to the bottom, and 'Pow!' It pops up. That's the backspin he's getting from the middle finger." The index finger is just supposed to hold the ball. The middle finger is supposed to do the work.
Bryant's longevity is a by-product of the many subtle adjustments he has made over the years, starting in 1999, when he broke his right hand and spent all of training camp developing his left. Back then, defenders would dare Bryant to shoot from outside, an unfathomable strategy today. They also tried to lock him up in the post, equally unthinkable. "I don't know any better post player in the game now," West says. Next up for Bryant, says Lakers assistant Jim Cleamons, "he will learn to come off screens so the ball will work for him and he won't have to beat everybody." Bryant's endless improvements require a kind of humility, the best player in the game forever open to the idea that he can get better.
6.06.2010
Wooden's Greatest Quotes
The life lessons taught by John Wooden have become legend. Here's a collection of some of the greatest "Woodenisms."
"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."
"Never mistake activity for achievement."
"Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then."
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
"Be prepared and be honest."
"Be quick, but don't hurry."
"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."
"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."
"What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player."
"Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character."
"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment."
"I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent."
"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"
"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."
"It isn't what you do, but how you do it."
"Ability is a poor man's wealth."
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."
"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights."
"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability."
"It's not so important who starts the game but who finishes it."
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."
"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."
"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."
"The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team."
"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."
"Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts."
"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."
"Never mistake activity for achievement."
"Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then."
"Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are."
"Be prepared and be honest."
"Be quick, but don't hurry."
"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."
"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you."
"What you are as a person is far more important than what you are as a basketball player."
"Winning takes talent; to repeat takes character."
"A coach is someone who can give correction without causing resentment."
"I'd rather have a lot of talent and a little experience than a lot of experience and a little talent."
"If you don't have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?"
"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes."
"It isn't what you do, but how you do it."
"Ability is a poor man's wealth."
"Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be."
"Consider the rights of others before your own feelings and the feelings of others before your own rights."
"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability."
"It's not so important who starts the game but who finishes it."
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."
"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."
"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful."
"The main ingredient of stardom is the rest of the team."
"Success comes from knowing that you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming."
"Success is never final; failure is never fatal. It's courage that counts."
6.04.2010
Phil Jackson: Immersion
Phil Jackson had this to say on Wednesday, when asked whether playing NBA basketball is fun:
"I think joy is in the competition, and if you are a player that relishes competition, I think this is what you consider to be fun, even though it may not be ha ha fun, it’s engagement. It’s immersion. It’s focus. All those things that draw the best out of your attention and your capabilities energy wise."
This idea of “immersion” really grabs me. We’ve probably all experienced this at some point: we lose ourselves in the task at hand; time evaporates; the world pleasantly falls away. And we’ve also, in the past twenty years of watching Phil Jackson-coached teams, gotten pretty used to seeing this phenomenon at play on the basketball court. We know what it looks like. The ball flows freely. The players’ faces take on a cool intensity. Their movements become both calmer and more dynamic and the game suddenly looks easy. As far as I’m concerned, these things–engagement, immersion, focus, joy–come pretty close to defining the best sense of both “work” and “play,” which, as anybody whose ever seriously practiced art or sports or music can tell you, aren’t all that far apart.
I’m reticent a little bit to use this analysis, but you talk to guys that come back from the war and they miss being in the war, and they go back and reenlist because they miss that total immersion of life that they have at that particular time. That’s some of what an athlete gets, that adrenaline, that immersion of total use of their facilities and all their faculties that make it hard to leave the game.
"I think joy is in the competition, and if you are a player that relishes competition, I think this is what you consider to be fun, even though it may not be ha ha fun, it’s engagement. It’s immersion. It’s focus. All those things that draw the best out of your attention and your capabilities energy wise."
This idea of “immersion” really grabs me. We’ve probably all experienced this at some point: we lose ourselves in the task at hand; time evaporates; the world pleasantly falls away. And we’ve also, in the past twenty years of watching Phil Jackson-coached teams, gotten pretty used to seeing this phenomenon at play on the basketball court. We know what it looks like. The ball flows freely. The players’ faces take on a cool intensity. Their movements become both calmer and more dynamic and the game suddenly looks easy. As far as I’m concerned, these things–engagement, immersion, focus, joy–come pretty close to defining the best sense of both “work” and “play,” which, as anybody whose ever seriously practiced art or sports or music can tell you, aren’t all that far apart.
I’m reticent a little bit to use this analysis, but you talk to guys that come back from the war and they miss being in the war, and they go back and reenlist because they miss that total immersion of life that they have at that particular time. That’s some of what an athlete gets, that adrenaline, that immersion of total use of their facilities and all their faculties that make it hard to leave the game.
6.02.2010
Psychology of the Free Throw
When it comes to understanding why players make or miss big free throws, scientific researchers agree with athletes: The clutch-shot challenge is mostly mental, not mechanical.
…brings us to two theories that get to the heart of crunch-time failures. One, called the Explicit Monitoring Hypothesis, suggests we choke because pressure makes us focus too much on actions that should be routine essentially, we over think a situation. Te other is called Regulatory Focus Theory, which proposes that most people pursue life goals in one of two ways: by trying to accomplish something positive or by trying to avoid something negative.
(Troy, this is what I was thinking about for you. This article is about big free throw attempts, but I think it has good thoughts about free throw shooting in general. If you can convince yourself that every free throw you take is an opportunity of some sort, whether it is thought of as a chance for easy points (like you said, highest percentage shot in basketball other than an open layin), to showcase your practice, or maybe more simply you could think of it as fun. If you could make some sort of positive association with free throws rather than trying to avoid something negative I believe it could go a long way.)
What does this have to do with free throws?
Free throw shooting, like putting and infield throws, is exactly the kind of task athletes perform best when it’s just a procedure, that is, when the brain isn’t overly monitoring the actions of the body (find middle of rim to bring focus away from anything mechanical or any other distractions). In fact, in one study, basketball players who got specific direction on how to improve their free throw mechanics went on to shoot worse under stress than players who were simply told to do their best. That’s Explicit Monitoring in action.
But, it turns out, game situations affect free throws, too. Researchers at the university of Texas looked at every free throw attempted by NBA players in the final mute of close games for three seasons, from 2003 to 2006. They found players shot 78.2%, slightly better than their career average of 76%, when games were tied, but worse (69%) when the shooter’s team was behind by one point.
The researchers think Regulatory Focus Theory helps describe what’s going on there. When a player’s team is down a point, all of the pressure on him points in one direction: He doesn’t want to choke, and he doesn’t want to lose. But in a tied game, although he still doesn’t want to choke, he can’t lose. In fact, he has a chance to win. And holding those two competing ideas at the same time – instead of keying in on one unified dread - offers just enough of a distraction. The brain has less time or energy to screw up what the body is doing.
A lot is going on in the brain when players take free throws. And the players who do best are probably those who can push not only mechanics out of their minds but also any thought of winning and losing – and heroes and goats, too.
…brings us to two theories that get to the heart of crunch-time failures. One, called the Explicit Monitoring Hypothesis, suggests we choke because pressure makes us focus too much on actions that should be routine essentially, we over think a situation. Te other is called Regulatory Focus Theory, which proposes that most people pursue life goals in one of two ways: by trying to accomplish something positive or by trying to avoid something negative.
(Troy, this is what I was thinking about for you. This article is about big free throw attempts, but I think it has good thoughts about free throw shooting in general. If you can convince yourself that every free throw you take is an opportunity of some sort, whether it is thought of as a chance for easy points (like you said, highest percentage shot in basketball other than an open layin), to showcase your practice, or maybe more simply you could think of it as fun. If you could make some sort of positive association with free throws rather than trying to avoid something negative I believe it could go a long way.)
What does this have to do with free throws?
Free throw shooting, like putting and infield throws, is exactly the kind of task athletes perform best when it’s just a procedure, that is, when the brain isn’t overly monitoring the actions of the body (find middle of rim to bring focus away from anything mechanical or any other distractions). In fact, in one study, basketball players who got specific direction on how to improve their free throw mechanics went on to shoot worse under stress than players who were simply told to do their best. That’s Explicit Monitoring in action.
But, it turns out, game situations affect free throws, too. Researchers at the university of Texas looked at every free throw attempted by NBA players in the final mute of close games for three seasons, from 2003 to 2006. They found players shot 78.2%, slightly better than their career average of 76%, when games were tied, but worse (69%) when the shooter’s team was behind by one point.
The researchers think Regulatory Focus Theory helps describe what’s going on there. When a player’s team is down a point, all of the pressure on him points in one direction: He doesn’t want to choke, and he doesn’t want to lose. But in a tied game, although he still doesn’t want to choke, he can’t lose. In fact, he has a chance to win. And holding those two competing ideas at the same time – instead of keying in on one unified dread - offers just enough of a distraction. The brain has less time or energy to screw up what the body is doing.
A lot is going on in the brain when players take free throws. And the players who do best are probably those who can push not only mechanics out of their minds but also any thought of winning and losing – and heroes and goats, too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)